Was
intervention of Kosovo justified? By giving students an adaptable
framework, USC’s Steven Lamy teaches them to go beyond ideological
labels to assess conflicts contextually.

Professor
Steven Lamy has developed a tool for teaching IR that avoids loaded
political terms like “conservative” and “liberal,” while encouraging
students to analyze global affairs from multiple perspectives. He calls
his approach the Worldviews/ DEPPP (Describe, Explain, Predict,
Prescribe, Participate) model.

In Lamy’s framework,
political agents fall into three groups: Maintainers are
realist-pessimists who believe in the primacy of military and economic
power. Reformers place greater emphasis on cooperation,
alliance-building and diplomacy. Transformers believe in the force of
ideas and, rather than reacting to short-term issues, strive for
foundational change in societies, nations and the world community.

If they were playing a board game, maintainers would choose Risk.
Reformers would choose Pictionary, working in teams but making sure to
reshuffle the members frequently. Transformers might not even get
around to unwrapping the game; they would be asking why so much of our
social interaction is based on competition.

Students demonstrate they understand each worldview by accurately
DEPPP-ing it (Lamy’s verb). For example, a student might be asked to
“describe” a problem from a maintainer’s perspective; “explain” why
it’s a problem; “predict” the outcome; “prescribe” an action to resolve
it; and state how a country’s citizens should “participate” in the
process.

In one class exercise, Lamy asks: Was humanitarian intervention an appropriate response to the ethnic conflict in Kosovo?

The chart below, paraphrased and edited for space, presents the typical response under each Worldview.

Maintainer

Reformer

Transformer

Describe

Civil
war is usually not a concern to outsiders. But the Kosovo conflict
threatened to increase instability in Europe and affect trade.

A quick, decisive intervention was warranted to stop the genocide of ethnic Albanians by the Serbian-controlled government.

The only long-term solution
is to replace our system of power politics with one focused on human security.

Explain

This is an area of strategic importance. Instability here could spill over into NATO member states.

Democratic nations and organizations such as the UN, EU and NATO are morally obliged to intervene.